NEW DELHI: Pressure is mounting on United Progressive Alliance (UPA) chairperson and Congress chief Sonia Gandhi to drop Home Minister Shivraj Patil from the Cabinet in the wake of his having failed to take effective action against terrorism, which has been “exposed” by the capital city rocked by multiple blasts on Saturday.
Among the first to demand more stringent action on this issue is Railway Minister and Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) chief Lalu Prasad. He met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Sonia yesterday and discussed the gravity of the situation.
While briefing reporters on his discussions with Singh and Sonia, Lalu Prasad refrained from directly referring to Patil. “A special Cabinet meeting should be called to discuss threadbare issues arising out of blasts in Delhi,” he said. Singh had assured him that such a meeting would be called in a couple of days, Lalu Prasad said.
Meanwhile, police said yesterday they were closing in on several Muslim suspects after bombs killed 23 people, but anger and frustration grew over their failure to prevent recent attacks.
Police identified Abdul Subhan Qureshi, a convent-educated computer expert and member of a banned Islamic students’ group, as the chief suspect in the New Delhi attack, and said he was also involved in bombing the western city of Ahmedabad in July.
They are also looking for a man they named as Qayamuddin, also known as Ashfaque. “We are close to cracking the case,” Delhi police spokesman Rajan Bhagat said. “We have picked up some people.”
The Indian media did not echo the optimism of the police after bombings in four major cities killed more than 150 people in recent months. In each case, suspects were named and Muslims were rounded up, but the attacks continue. “What’s changed?” asked an editorial in the Indian Express newspaper yesterday. Police are massively understaffed and under-resourced. There is no central database of militant suspects and little time for meticulous investigations.
“We have not had a dedicated task force to look into the deficiencies in our counterterrorism mechanism,” said B. Raman, a former head of India’s spy agency RAW. “We need a central investigation agency for counterterrorism to build up a cadre of dedicated investigation officers.”
